Domain 4:
Professional Responsibility
The candidate presents artifacts and accompanying descriptions that demonstrate his or her belief in the importance of engaging in professional learning and using evidence to continually evaluate progress. The candidate seeks appropriate leadership roles, collaborates with others, participates in the professional community, and demonstrates professionalism.
InTASC #9
Professional Learning & Ethical Practice:
The teacher engages in ongoing professional learning and uses evidence to continually evaluate his or her practice, particularly the effects of his or her choices and actions on others (learners, families, other professionals, and the community), and adapts practice to meet the needs of each learner.
InTASC #10
Leadership & Collaboration:
The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, and other school professionals, and community members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the profession.
CAEP 1.4
1.4 Attainment of College-and Career Ready Standards that demonstrate skills and commitment that advance the learning of all P-12 students.
~Context~
The following artifact is a lesson I completed that is referred to as the Virtue Project. For this assignment, I created a lesson plan based on the children's literature book, The Little Engine That Could, to teach the virtue of hope. For this lesson, as the instructor I completed a read-aloud of the book and then had the students complete a character analysis of The Little Engine, and relate the theme of the book to the virtue of Hope. Throughout the lesson, students will collaborate and complete activities in the field of English Language Arts and Social Studies related to identity development. As the instructor, the motivation of this lesson is to endow upon students the importance of creating goals for themselves and working towards achieving them. This is reiterated through having hope and faith in themselves that they are capable of doing great things in this world.
The instructor serves as the facilitator of the activities relating to the theme of the book but also inspires students to make personal connections to the material. Students will be placed in groups where they will share with one another their hopes and dreams for the future. This promotes collaboration and community building within the classroom. Further, they will write down their own goals and dreams to demonstrate their writing ability.
After their goals are written down, the instructor leads a time capsule activity where their goals and hopes for the future are put inside a box. The classroom will then go outside and dig and bury the time capsule in the ground which will not be dug up until they graduate fifth grade. This activity is fun and engaging and gives the learners something to look forward to in the future.
The Summative Assessment of this lesson aims at summarizing the theme of the book concerning the virtue of Hope. Students will create a book through an art project and answer prompts relating to the content of the book. The Little Engine That Could. Grammar, spelling, and comprehension will be assessed by the instructor.
~Implications~
Being an effective educator is not strictly based on academics, but also on promoting a strong sense of personal direction, integrity, and leadership in students. This begins with the educators themselves resembling these characteristics in the way they teach their students. I believe this lesson satisfies academic content but is also rooted in something greater by implementing identity development through virtue ethics. Through this lesson, students are motivated to collaborate with their peers about their hopes and dreams for their future. The attitude of the Little Engine reveals that through hard work and hope, we can achieve what we put our mind and effort towards. This serves as a motivator for learners to work towards their goals so they can be better members of their school and other communities.